Processing Disposing of Business Waste Yourself Yes You Can

[akwe-xavante]

Yes you can process, transport and dispose/transfer your business waste yourself.

The pros and cons of doing so and what's involved.

Prerequisites:
Your own Wheelie bins.
A vehicle that's insured for business use (Business and pleasure qualifies).
A hard hat and a high vis jacket or tabard! (You need these to enter a waste recycling facility by law).

A carriers licence, a licence to carry waste in your vehicle. Cost £154 per 3yrs or £51.33 a year.

You then require a transfer note that can come in a number of ways / formats but what is a transfer note? A transfer note is a simple form that must have the following information.

Who you are and what the business address is.
What the waste is that is being transferred.
Who is the waste being transferred to.
A transfer note is free and anybody with basic PC/word processing skills can create one but there are many available to download free of charge.

If your transferring waste from and to the same people that is essentially the same type of waste every time then only one transfer note is required for each 12 month period. These transfer notes must be kept for a minimum period of 2yrs.

All's very simple and straight forward so far and anybody can achieve this.

Now the difficulty I had was finding someone / somewhere to transfer the waste to.

The council said yes no problem but there charge was £120 minimum per metric tonne (1000kg) A non starter!!!!!!
I contacted the company that was contracted to the council directly, same again.

I contacted three other local independent waste management companies, two didn't want to know.

The third said that I didn't require a transfer note in advance because they do this for you as part of the receipt they give you when they weigh in the waste being transferred to them and they charged £1 per 10KG plus vat so transferring 10kg would cost a total inc VAT of £1.20. I could pay by card, cash or BACS.

To calculate the weight of your waste we need to make a few assumptions based on past facts available!

The average UK person generates an average of 1.9kg of waste a day.
The average family size in the UK is 2.5 people.
That's 4.75kg a day (10kg £1.20) Minimum Charge.
33.25kg per week (40kg £4.80)
133kg per month (140kg £16.80)
1596kg (1.6 metric tonnes) a year (1600kg £192.00)

This assumes that your property is occupied by 2.5 people 365 days a year!? That's an annual cost of £243.33 (£192.00 + £51.33).

For some people this would be a huge annual saving, for others it may not be worth any savings made or the trouble and hassle involved.

My point is though that it is possible to legally process your own Business Waste yourself if you wanted to do so and for some it would be worth while.

Charges per 10kg of waste may very well differ from area to area, county to county etc but it's worth exploring for some people.

[edinburgh]

Fascinating post! I can't be bothered to handle my own waste (erm, so to speak), but I really admire your thinking!

[kg1]

Crumbs. Is this just waste from your holiday let or something else?

[newtimber]

How are you going to lift a full wheelie bin into your vehicle? An ordinary family car would be a non-starter. You'd need a vehicle with a ramp to wheel it up and you'd have to transport it upright so the waste didn't fall out - unless you'd got that type of vehicle it would be a non-starter if you had to buy/hire one.

You costings assume that you aren't paying yourself anything for your time or fuel doing it.

[akwe-xavante]

Crumbs. Is this just waste from your holiday let or something else?

Good god no, well I don't think so. I googled what the average UK resident's daily waste was. Gob smacked to discover it was 1.9kg of waste a day.

I googled what the average UK family size was, 2.5 people per household.

A little simple maths based on 365 days occupancy and an average UK family creates 1.6 metric tonnes of household waste a year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yikes.

My let I'm sure creates considerably less waste than this over a 12 month period.

I and several other people I know in my area that have FHL received letters about waste in recent weeks with warnings etc. So we have all had to comply with the law and change our ways.

My problem is that I can't put the bins out myself because I can't get there on bin day and I've failed to find someone to do it reliably for me and I can't expect the guests to do it as its not easy and involves a 250yrd walk each way up a windy wobbly path with gates. The council say they won't allow the bin men to use the footpath to get to the bins.

So I've had to explore alternatives and doing it yourself is one of them to discover that you can do it yourself quite legally and potentially save a lot money and in some circumstances even a lot of hassle etc too for some people.

I reckon I could do my own quite legally with a carriers licence and weighing in properly as required for roughly £100 a year in total.

At the mo it's looking as though this is going to be my only reliable way of taking away the waste from the let that I have.

[newtimber]

My problem is that I can't put the bins out myself because I can't get there on bin day and I've failed to find someone to do it reliably for me and I can't expect the guests to do it as its not easy and involves a 250yrd walk each way up a windy wobbly path with gates. The council say they won't allow the bin men to use the footpath to get to the bins.

Private companies can collect from your property - smaller companies are more flexible and can do exactly what you are proposing to do yourself. Yes it will cost more than doing it yourself but that is true of most things. It depends on whether you like that sort of work - and if you do, why not set up a waste disposal business yourself?